Monmouth Courthouse Game at The Northern Conspiracy

Last Friday our club got together for our January game night. I hosted an Electronic Brigadier game of the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse. These excellent photos were taken by my uncle as I was too busy hosting the game to get any good photos myself. 

This is a large scenario and I had several players who were new to the rules. While they all learned quickly we ran out of time before the battle came to a full conclusion. There were several charges, a few units wavering from casualties, but all in all both armies still had a lot of fight left in them. Per the scenario the British rear guard, holding even or slightly ahead in casualties and army cohesion, earned a minor victory, holding the field and protecting their line of march.

I'll probably be making some adjustments to the scenario and game system to further speed play in order to bring larger games like this to a conclusion in 3-4 hours.

Conquest of Italy Campaign - Board Game Session

Last Wednesday evening, the generals in our Conquest of Italy First Punic War campaign got together to continue our campaign moves on the board game that we are using as our campaign system. The evening started out with Syracuse retreating after the battle of Lillybaeum with only minor loses of 20% of their army. Syracuse offered a truce to Carthage with the stipulation that they keep already captured Carthaginian territory. Carthage refused the offer.

As the following year began many alliances were broken and a few were created. Rome broke their peace with Syracuse and attacked their city just south of Cannae. The Carthaginian siege in Tarentum was relieved by an army lead by the recently arrived Phyrrus of Epirus and his new pikemen. Phyrrus eventually marched his forces all the way to Lillybaeum and continued the harsh Greek aggression against the Carthaginians. The second battle of Lillybaeum will be our next tabletop battle.

Monmouth Play Test Videos

I received a new high definition video camera for Christmas this year. I asked for it in hopes that I could use it to make some better quality movies for this blog. I have yet to start learning how to edit my videos into movies, so these are unedited clips I took during the play test game.

Monmouth Courthouse Play Test

Last Monday was the Martin Luther King holiday. Many of my friends had the day off as did I, so I asked for their help play testing my Monmouth Courthouse game that I was planning on hosting the following Friday at our club's monthly game day.

Monmouth is a rather large battle when each unit is a regiment or battalion. As such my scenario is a slightly reduced order of battle which leaves about two brigades from each army off the table. With the time available, our set up and discussion, it became clear that I would have to alter the deployment of troops for game night in order to expedite play. We also found a few errors in my unit labels and I received some additional feedback on the scenario and rules.

I'd like to thank below the British, left to right Byron, Phil and Rob, and the Americans, left to right, Kevin, Ed and Ralph.

The Battle of Lillybaeum - Conquest of Italy Campaign

Two weekends ago I hosted the Battle of Lillybaeum at my house. This was the second battle in the conquest of Italy campaign that my friend Mike is running. The battle was a Carthaginian defense of Lillybaeum against an invading Syracusian army. On the Carthaginian side (left in the movie) are forward to back, Ralph, Me, Rob and Bob. On the Syracusian side forward to back are Charlie, Greg, Ed, Phil and spectating in the back was Don. 

This was a fun game with the Carthaginian army having higher numbers, but lower quality units. Syracuse actually out-numbered Carthage 9 army points to 8. The battle resulted in a Carthaginian victory, thanks to excellent play by the Carthaginian 2nd in command, Rob, and good play across the board. All of the Syracusian players played very well too.

This video was the first one made by Mike and it's actually quite enjoyable to watch. It gives a great feeling for what our games are like. It includes each side's strategic meetings before the battle and plenty of in game banter.

Macedonians vs. Persians - Hanibal at the Gates

Yesterday Charlie, Bob and I visited my uncle Ralph to play some Hanibal at the Gates ancients. The game was Persia vs an Alexandrian Macedonian army. The Macedonians were fresh off the painting table, beautiful and Ralph was interested in play testing the pike for his rules.

I took the right half of the Persian army which contained a Greek mercenary phalanx wing and a Persian infantry wing. Bob had two Persian infantry wings, but one of them was the royal guard - a higher quality of troops in it. Opposite me was Charlie, who commanded a Macedonain pike wing, a heavy cavalry division and the infantry elements of Alexandar's royal guard. Ralph faced Bob with his own Macedonian pike wing, a cavalry and the companion cavalry.

This was a hard fought game. The Pike and Greek spear units seemed well matched against each other. Charlie having an additional unit of heavies won the battle on our side. On Bob's side the companions proved too tough for the lightly armored Persian cavalry and they carried that side. Victory for Alexander. I heard he was pretty good....

It was a fun day and the Pike seemed to work well. They have more figures than Greek style spear phalanx but lighter armor so play similarly. Next up for HATG a Macedonian army vs a Roman army, also to check for play balance. For me next up is a play test of my ACW Electronic Brigadier scenario for the Northern Conspiracy's upcoming January game night. I'm going to be running Monmouth, which includes some British dragoons. This will be the first Electronic Brigadier game with cavalry, so I want to make sure everything works properly before I bring the game to the club.

Syracuse vs Carthage - Hanibal at the Gates

Last Friday evening my Uncle hosted a pick up game of his ancients rules, Hanibal at the Gates. This was partially a re-match of our recently completed campaign battle which pitted a Syracusian army against a Carthaginian army. In the campaign battle the Carthaginian's won, but in this re-match, Charlie, the Syracusian commander, devised a system to fight with the hoplite phalanxes that seemed to work nicely.

This was a well fought and close game with Syracuse coming out slightly ahead when we called the game.

Northern Conspiracy December 2014 Game Day

This past Saturday the Northern Conspiracy got together for our December game day. Being December 27th the theme was the Christmas Truce of 1914. Our new president, Phil, was raised by his grandfather, a WWI veteran. Phil made a nice opening speech about his grandfather's service and the first world war. We opened the day up with a hot catered breakfast followed by two games.

 Andre ran several battles using his excellent Aerodrome game which has players plot their moves on simulated aircraft dashboards. Figures were 1:144 scale Wings of Glory miniatures. Many of them modified by Andre using decals and paints.

Bob ran an early war (pre-trenches) French vs German scenario using Bolt action rules with his own WWI modifications and his beautiful table featuring hand-modified trees and homemade freshly plowed fields.